July 2012 Update

Good evening filmmakers!

I hope all is well with you.

Just a quick update from your distributor. 

We are deep in preparations for our Toronto Showcase and Incubator Program that will take place from Sept 4-15th, and the line-up is very exciting.As you know our festivals in Toronto, Barbados and New York, serve to raise the profile of the company and of Film Brand Caribbean, so drawing audiences and buyers to your wonderful work.

Distribution-wise, I am pleased to say that our income from sales increased 100% in our second year, over Year 1. Interest in the company continues to grow, and so despite the bleak economic climate and dire global state of film distribution, we enter Year 3 with optimism.

Educational sales remain our staple, and income in this area continues to rise, but we also had a nice broadcast sale to CUNY TV, that broadcasts in the Tristate. 

In terms of current and future plans, we are working with German VOD platform http://Onlinefilm.org to make your films available for home use online. The following films are already available for sale there,  so you can do a search on the site and find them (some still need pics uploaded)

Ramabai Espinet: Coming Home

Nalo Hopkinson : Fabulous Spaces

Trapped In an Elevator

Trou D'Air

Entry Denied

Directions

Crossing Over

E Leyenda de Buchi Fil

Drummit to Summit

Calypso Dreams

Finder of Lost Children

Positive and Pregnant

Miss Lou: Then and Now

I Is A Long Memoried Woman

Reunion

We aim to have all but our best broadcast/educational sellers available online within a year, both at ONLINEFILM.ORG as well as on our website CARIBBEANTALES-WORLDWIDE.COM.  We will continue to do due diligence to manage the sales centrally to ensure that only those legitimately wishing to view the films for home use have access - educational and broadcast will still have to buy directly from us.

We are excited to let you know that we are in negotiations with ONLINEFILM.ORG to be their exclusive partner for Caribbean content across all their various European platforms - the site will be called Caribbean.Onlinefilm.org.

And, at this weeks press conference for the Toronto Showcase we announced plans to launch CARIBBEANTALES-TV, a proprietary Netflix-style portal for viewing Caribbean films online. Right now we are building the infrastructure, and it aims to be fully functional onstream by next year. 

Here is a rough protoptype of what the site may look like (early stages).

As you know at the end of 2011 we made the decision to temporarily put a hold on new acquisitions in order to consolidate our Catalogue. Nevertheless, we are very pleased to welcome a number of new films/filmmakers to the CaribbeanTales family in 2012. They are:

Room for Rent - by Ginger Knight (Jamaica)

Little Boy Blue - by Nicholas Attin (Trinidad and Tobago)

Mr Crab - by Faisal Lutchmedial (Canada)

Jab! The Blue Devils of Paramin (T&T); 70 - A Revolution  (T&T); C'est Quitte: The French Creoles of Trinidad (T&T) - all produced by Elizabeth Topp and directed by Alex DeVerteiul.

A Series of Agricultural Short Films - produced by the CSA and directed by very talented young filmmakers from around the Caribbean region.

and, Human Traffic : Past and Present (USA) - directed by moi, (Frances-Anne Solomon), for the Center for African and African American Research at Duke University.

We will be producing a special mini-catalogue to include and promote our new acquisitions at TIFF in September.

That's it for now.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch to let me know if you have questions or wish to chat about the above. I am often available on skype or always by email and very happy to hear from you.

With best wishes,

Frances-Anne